1. Field
This invention relates generally to telecommunications, and in particular, to a system, method and apparatus of conducting a secure transaction during a call.
2. Related Art
People typically use phone calls for person-to-person communication. Occasionally, a consumers use phone calls to make a purchase or place an order. During such commercial use, businesses often ask customers for a credit card number and verbal credit card approval to pay for goods and services. Verbal transmission of consumer credit card or other financial account information via a phone call presumes a certain level of trust between the customer and the business. The consumer assumes they can trust the business to which they are giving their credit card number and the business assumes they can trust that the information that the consumer is giving actually belongs to that consumer. There are consumers and businesses alike that take advantage of the presumption of trust to commit various types of fraud via phone calls. Despite the fact that phone call transactions are wrought with risks of fraud, for better or worse, many consumers and businesses tend to accept such risks for the sake of convenience or profit.
The risks involved with giving credit card or other payment information via a phone call are best illustrated with examples. Consider, for instance, a scenario in which a consumer is planning a vacation cruise through a travel agent. The consumer calls the travel agent to organize all the details of the trip. After the consumer, with the help of the travel agent, decides on the cruise line, cabin size, deck level, ground/air transportation and other pertinent plans, the travel agent informs the consumer that the reservation requires immediate payment. The consumer indicates that they would like to pay with a credit card, and gives the travel agent the credit card information and other information needed to validate the transaction possibly including, but not limited to, name, billing address, expiration date or card verification number or code such as Card Verification Value 2 (CVV2), Card Validation Code (CVD) or Card Identifier (CID). Unbeknownst to the consumer, the travel agent has written the credit card number and other information down on a piece of paper. The travel agent might not have any fraudulent intentions, however the piece of paper with the customers credit card information was left out in the open.
Upon returning from the cruise, the consumer comes to discover that there are several large value charges made to the credit card account used to book the cruise from locations that would have been impossible for the consumer to have visited whilst on the cruise. It is later discovered that the travel agent left the consumer's credit card information out in the open. Later on, a walk-in customer came into the travel agent's office, copied the information and used it make several fraudulent purchases.
In another scenario, a university student uses a phone registration system to register for the upcoming semester. After selecting the courses and class hours, the phone registration system instructs the student to pay for the registration. The student chooses to pay with a credit card. The registration system prompts the student for credit card information, and asks the student to agree with the payment. The student agrees accordingly. The registration system charges the credit card for the registration fee. Though the student might be happy that he gets all the desired classes, he is not aware that the registration system has kept a record of his credit card information, including the credit card number and expiration date.
Later on, another university student breaks into the university's computers, including the registration system, giving him access to all the registration records, including all the records of students with stored credit card information.
The common acceptance of the above example fraud-prone payment over the phone systems is probably due to the fact that the people do not conduct such transaction frequently, or the fact that the population using such systems is relatively small.
Thus, there is a need for a system, method and apparatus for conducting transactions over a call that will improve security, reliability and promote user trust and consumer confidence. The present invention solves these and other problems by providing transaction methods that can be initiated over a call wherein the identity of up to all involved parties and other information can be discovered and verified.